


move (like a bird of paradise)

by hyerewolf



Series: honey, ask me, i should know [2]
Category: LOONA (Korea Band)
Genre: F/F, Song: Movement (Hozier)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-12
Updated: 2019-04-12
Packaged: 2020-01-12 09:55:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18444176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hyerewolf/pseuds/hyerewolf
Summary: Dancing was Jungeun's first love.





	move (like a bird of paradise)

**Author's Note:**

> happy (belated) birthday once again, debbie, i hope you like this little thing!

Dancing was Jungeun's first love. She was moving to the rhythm before she even properly learned how to walk. Her parents - her mother more than her father - were encouraging enough, signing her up for multiple classes and making sure she attended them all. It only went up - or downhill, depending on how you look at it - from there.

By the age of 20, Jungeun finds herself enrolled in one of the best dance academies in the country, on a full scholarship at that. "Natural talent," all of her coaches say, almost in unison, when they talk about her to anyone else. She scoffs at that; they all know it's more hard work than anything else. She spends hours upon hours watching her own reflection in the studio's mirror, making sure her body moves exactly as she wants to it to.

One of the requirements of her scholarship is attending showcases and now she's at yet another one, going backstage after having finished "yet another amazing performance," as her coach says. She isn't paying much attention to him, focusing on her own feet instead. Maybe a little too much, because suddenly she feels someone bump into her, hears a quick "sorry" being thrown her way. When Jungeun turns her head, she catches a glimpse of a pristine white dress and long dark hair before the person disappears around the corridor's corner. She figures it's just one of the dancers supposed to go on stage next and doesn't think about it too much.

Jungeun makes her way to her seat in the audience just before the next performance is about to start. She settles down as the dancer walks out into the spotlight and Jungeun realizes it's the same girl that bumped into her a few minutes earlier. Her white dress seems to be shimmering in the light as she starts dancing, slow and almost shy at first, gaining more and more speed and confidence as the performance progresses.

Her routine is calculated and rigid, which is expected at an event of this rank, but there's something powerful and rough underneath that. Something raw. Emotional. Like she's being stopped in midmotion for some reason. Like she's a restrained bird, wanting to break free, fighting with the bounds keeping her tied down.

Jungeun feels something on her cheek and when she reaches up to wipe it off, she realizes it's a tear, and another one is already following its path.

The girl finishes her performance, freezing in the final pose, and Jungeun is one of the first people to start clapping, still shaken in all the best ways. She attempts to find the girl at the backstage after the showcase ends, but there's no trace of her. She asks the staff, who tell her something about one of the contestants leaving early, and Jungeun curses herself for not even getting her name.

She tries to forget about the girl, to no avail. She tries to focus on her own routines, but as she moves in front of the mirror in the studio, she can't help but compare her own gestures and poses to the raw emotion of the ones presented by the girl in the white outfit. She feels like she doesn't come anywhere remotely close to that.

It s not until almost two months later, when she sees the girl again. By then, she's already convinced herself that that night's performance was just a very vivid fantasy, something she's daydreamed from a mixture of exhaustion and three second impression of a stranger in the backstage corridor. She's sitting in the changing room, applying the finishing touches to her make up before going out on stage. She puts on the highlighter and looks into the mirror critically when she hears the door to the room open. She turns around and freezes, a brush in her hand, mouth open.

There's a girl in the doorway, her big brown eyes filled to the brim with surprise. They look at each other for two long seconds, before the girl mumbles an apology and closes the door. It takes Jungeun a solid second to realize why the intruder looked so familiar and another one get up from her chair and storm out of the room. There's no way she's letting her go this time.

Three months later, Jungeun's sitting cross-legged on the hard floor of a dance studio. She's holding an almost empty water bottle and watching the girl - Sooyoung - warm up. She knows all of those exercises by heart, they've done them together countless times - just as a way to spend more time together at first, then as an excuse to justify going out to grab a coffee together afterwards, until it became just one more of their small rituals as a couple. But today Sooyoung was late, got caught up in her student duties long after the classes have ended, so Jungeun lets her do her thing while she herself rests after finishing going through her routine for the day. She's staring, she knows that, but there's little she can do to help it.

Sooyoung notices her stare; she smiles at her and nods. Jungeun presses "play" on the phone connected to the speakers. A song starts; a soft guitar and something that sounds similarly to soft drumming. She doesn't know this one, but she doesn't really care, as her attention is grabbed immediately by the fluid movement of Sooyoung's body, the emotion she puts into every single gesture, and Jungeun can't help but smile a little.

And as she watches Sooyoung lose herself in the song's rhythm, she realizes something.

Dancing might have been Jungeun's first love, but it's nothing compared to what she feels for Sooyoung.

**Author's Note:**

> twitter/curiouscat: @bbywolfs
> 
> (swoops away)


End file.
